ANDERSON – PSI DIVISION

WISHIN’ DUDE

By Richard Cairns

She looked up at the stars, and wondered: how do you make a wish? I mean, really place your order? Just close your eyes and say the words in your head? Imagine the desired scenario in pictures? Plead longingly to Grud with all your heart until it feels like it’s going to explode? Which is it?

Anderson realised she didn’t know.

Albat Dringle had an idea, she thought, and as the stars began to fade into blackness she realised the three hundred pound man who was throttling her over her Lawmaster would do anything to keep it a secret.

From them.

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Ten minutes ago on this cold night she was heading East on Daintree – Control needed a psi urgent to mind-sweep a hit-and-run victim – when something deflected off her mind like a strange nuke.

Not a destructive force, more an explosion of creation… things being brought together.

When she pulled over and glanced in what felt like it’s direction, one or two citizens in the small group gathered nearby shifted nervously and began to leave.

As she made her way across the street, the crowd quickly dispersed entirely except for a large man sitting cross-legged, zen-like on the sidewalk. Bathed in pink neon light from Hurst Fake Snuff Store, he wore wraparound shades.

A busker, she first assumed, eyeing the upturned cap laid out in front of him peppered with creds.

Anderson dismounted, and saw his handwritten sign:-

WIShEs

10 CREDiTS

“Reckon you’re selling yourself short, pal!” she grinned.

He remained impassive.

She started towards him. “I’d pay at least—“

ZAM! There it was again, stopping her dead.

(things moving around)

Then he spoke, his voice calm and collected. “Did you talk, lady? Sorry, I was taking care of Mister Johannes.”

What’s the deal here? This ain’t no regular street-freak. Proceed with caution.

“Okay Mister,”

“Dringle… Albat Dringle at your service, Miss!” and then, grinning up at her, “would you like to make a wish?”

She paused.

“So where’s the magic lamp?”

He smiled warmly and removed his shades, revealing useless, rolling eyes underneath.

“Ain’t no genie, Miss, but I have been blessed with a little special somethin’. Now, I wouldn’t normally ask for anythin’ in return, but I’m blind see an’ my robodog keeled over with that virus that’s gettin’ them all. Have you heard about that? I’m savin’ for the repairs.”

Anderson peered into the cap.

“Oh, for sure I could charge a little more, but, truth be known…” he flashed a pointless glance left and right before slowly leaning forward and whispering with a sly wink, “…I sorta get myself a real kick outta cheerin’ other folks up too, you know what I mean?”

Anderson had to admit she was a little taken with Albat Dringle and his strange little world.

(yes but what about those psi flashes)

“Why not just wish for a new robodog, or your sight back for that matter? You could still grant everyone a million creds on top of that.”

He replaced his shades and shook his head, smile fading a little.

“Can’t do that, Miss. Ain’t never tried to put things right for myself, least not that way. Don’t seem right somehow. I have this gift, but I’m still only human. I reckon the day I start makin’ things easier for Albat Dringle is the day he gets lazy an’ greedy an’ Grud knows what else.”

She was probing him discreetly while he spoke, and found only clean and unselfish thoughts – the rarity of which in this city made him almost intoxicating.

(nevertheless those flashes)

“An’ I don’t deal with no greedy folk, either. I’ll try an’ fix a baby an’ a disease but don’t come to Albat lookin’ for money or he’ll turn you right away.”

He beamed up again “Now, sure there ain’t nothin’ I can do for a nice lady like—“

“Control to Anderson!” the Lawmaster crackled behind her, and she remembered her duty. As she turned to use the mic, he heard her produce the cuffs.

“Anderson, Control – on my way to that hit-and-run. Send unit to corner Daintree and Hurst, pickup one Albat Dringle: begging with deceit. Possible latent psi-abilities. Withold sentence pending investigation.”

It was as if his face had been held together by staples, and now they were all removed at one. He sagged like a dishcloth.

Then he got angry.

====================

“YOU!”

“YOU!” he bellowed at her, shaking, throttling.

She could smell his synthi-caf breath as huge hands tightened once more around her throat.

Anderson cursed herself for turning her back on a perp. She’d swivelled in time to see him charge like a bull, and now here she was bent backwards over her bike at his huge and blind mercy.

YOU! Is all he kept saying, but it was enough.

Not her, she sensed, but us.

“wishin’ dude!” she heard, fading with the night sky.

And then, oblivion.

====================

She woke up in the Sector House Med-Bay some twenty hours later to Cartwright, a twenty-five year man who welcomed her back to the land of the living and then got straight down to business.

“You were out when Berkins arrived on Hurst – Dringle had you in his arms like a baby. He was crying – thought he’d killed you.”

Anderson tried to sit up – exquisite pain! – “I… thought he’d -ah!- killed me…”

She touched her purple, bruised neck and recoiled as if it were scalding hot.

“What happenned… he gave himself up?” she winced.

“He’s dead, Anderson.”

The pain was forgotten.

“Another man was present at the scene – Dink Johannes. He had held back and heard your encounter with Dringle. When it turned nasty, he thought he’d better step in and try reason with ‘The Wishin’ Dude.’”

It was coming back to her now, with sledgehammer force.

“Johannes snapped him out of it – probably saved your life – and told us this was not at all like The Wishin’ Dude and we should be kind to him because The Wishin’ Dude was a righteous man and saves lives.”

Cartwright seemed to steel himself for the enormity of what he was about to say.

“He told us he paid Dringle ten credits that evening to cure his father of Multiple Sclerosis. When we checked – Grud knows why, but we did – it turns out Johannes senior had recently been given only two months to live, yet had just returned from a ten-mile jog and told us he’d never felt better in his entire life. That it was a miracle.”

Anderson felt uneasily sure about where this was going. Still, she checked Cartwright had a straight face, which he did.

“We investigated four of Johannes’ acquaintances, who in the past week were

as-if-by-magic suddenly able to conceive, cured of brain-parasites and terminal bowel cancer, and had their sight restored after blindness since childhood.”

That last one struck a chord. Yet he wouldn’t fix himself…

“There’s more – Hurst spy-in-the-sky ID’d ten of the cits who were gathered before you showed up, and six of them we dragged in ‘made wishes’ via Dringle that came true overnight.

Anderson felt sick.

“Illnesses gone… children out of poverty… charities booming… you name it. Of the four who missed out, three had demanded riches and one poor guy was next in line when you arrived on the scene.”

Cartwright removed his helmet and sat down on the bed. His cold, working eyes chilled her slightly.

“Did Dringle tell you how long he’d been at this, Anderson? It’s a surprise we never picked him up earlier. Grud only knows what kind of world he’s been shaping for himself.”

Now he was trying to demonise him. She felt the urge to scream, but suppressed it, as usual.

Cartwright was no psi, but he could sense her distaste. He got up, replacing his helmet.

“There are many cogs turning in this world, Anderson, and one man cannot take it upon himself to interfere. Everything comes with a price. We make our decisions and live with them.”

And he left, wishing her a speedy recovery.

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Deep in the bowels of Psi-Division is a special room, and within that room is another. Within that room is the most special of them all. There, beneath the lead and the circuits and the radiation, the body and mind of a large man sleeps forever. They won’t dare wake him up, not one bit of him. Not even for a second. Just in case. Then why is he still alive? Because it is in their nature to deconstruct and to utilise. They won’t be able to resist him.

And then they’ll be sorry.

the end